My First Turkey

Ok, here's a great hunting story of mine from several years ago, but definitely one that should be told.  It is the story of how I managed to finally shoot my first turkey.  This happened in 2006, when I was living in Mt. Horeb, WI and going to grad school at UW-Madison.  As I was a grad student, I had a fairly flexible schedule and was fortunate enough to be able to hunt all five days allowed for the WI turkey seasons.  Additionally, I was extremely fortunate to have property to hunt that had a decent population of turkeys.  This property was structured such that there was a large farmed field up on top of a hill ringed with woods and no easy access from a road.  I had access through an adjoining property, and was allowed to hunt the field and most of the surrounding woods.

Now, I did have some experience hunting turkeys.  The year before I had participated in the NWTF's First-time Hunter's Program, as well as hunting my own five day season.  Despite having essentially a guided hunt and an extra season to spend in the field, I was unable to harvest a bird.  So, this particular year, I was committed to hunting as much as I could, and if possible, taking my first bird with my bow.

I started off on Wednesday morning, waking up at something like 4 a.m. in order to be out in the field early enough to precede the turkeys first gobbles and subsequent fly-downs.  Because I had spent plenty of time in those woods the previous fall for deer hunting, and had seen plenty of birds, I initially decided to set up my blind in the woods, very near where I knew the birds had roosted all fall.  Arriving early and setting up quietly, I was all ready and waiting by 4:45 a.m. when I knew birds would be flying down.  This would have been great, except for the fact that the darn birds had decided sometime in the intervening time to relocate to some other location some distance away.  I knew they were around as I had heard them in the distance, but even until noon when I decided to call it a day and head to work, none had made their way anywhere near me.

Because of my poor luck on Wednesday, I decided to relocate some distance up the hill, to a small grassy area closer to the field, but still some distance away from the field edge.  Again, on Thursday, I was up early and there with plenty of time to spare, but no birds came anywhere near me.  This time though, through the woods and across the field, I could make out some black dots I knew to be strutting turkeys.  Again, around noon, I gave up for the day, but committed to having a closer experience the next day.

Well...on Friday, I was 20 yards closer, but when the birds are still 150 yards away, 20 yards might as well have been no closer at all.  Fortunately though, this time I was directly on the field edge and was able to clearly see in the distance the toms and jakes as they strutted in the sunlit field.

Turkey's strutting on the hill at a distance.

For those of you who may not have had the opportunity to see, in person, turkeys strutting, even from a distance, it is an exciting and captivating dance.  The toms puff themselves up and fan their tails, making them look twice as large as they normally do.  They then drop their wings and drag them on the ground as they strut back and forth, back and forth, over a strut zone.  Then, when they hear hear a hen, or if they are trying to attract attention, they stretch their necks out as they let out a thunderous gobble.  If one is fortunate enough to be close to this dance, the occasional spit-drum can be heard.  That sound of a short spitting sound followed by what sounds like a tympani drum being struck is enough for anyone's adrenaline flowing.  It is truly an amazing and awe-inspiring sight that I hope you all get to experience someday.  Unfortunately, on this day, I could only observe from a distance, and form plans for the last two days I had to hunt.

The next day, Saturday, I had my good friend, Jason Ramaker, with me to help call and to basically enjoy the hunt.  On this day, I had decided to set up the blind at the end of the field I had seen the birds strutting in the day before, and, where I had observed them move off to the day before.  I believe this plan was a good one, and would have worked very well, except for the clouds that had rolled in the night before.  Because turkeys like to strut in sunny hillsides, and the fact that there were no sunny hillsides due to the clouds, the birds never even showed up.  We heard and saw them in the distance, we even had them moving on our direction at one point, but alas, they only moved off and never even got close enough to get a good picture.  At one point we did have one near to us, but this bird showed up quickly and briefly behind us, and by the time we knew it was there, it was already beyond the spot where I might have had a shot.  Again, a great day in the field, but with nothing to show for it.  And now, only one day left!

So now we come to Sunday morning.  Again, I got up nice and early (4 a.m.) and arrived at my spot with plenty of time to move and get set up.  This time, because I was tired of pussy-footing around with these birds, I decided to set up nice and close to where they were roosted.  The day before I had observed roughly where they originated from, but didn't know exactly where they were roosting.  Instead, I decided to set up smack dab in the middle of the field with the woods equidistant around me on three sides.  Setting up without having any cover around was one of those tactics that I had heard about, but never taken the gamble to actually do it.

So there I was, in my blind, in the middle of the field, waiting for the action to begin.  About a half-hour before first light (at least an hour before sunrise), the birds started calling and gobbling from the roost.  Now, my heart started to beat as I could tell the birds were close, and now I had a pretty good idea of where they were roosted.  To get me even more excited, the day was looking like it was going to be absolutely beautiful and sunny, which should draw them right towards me and the sunny hillside they liked to strut on.  A short time later, I heard the birds fly down and so I prepared for whatever might happen.  Within 15 minutes, I looked to the field edge and there coming up into the field was a line of turkeys, marching like an army, with a huge tom out in front like a general leading the charge.  Because I had set up several decoys, they were headed straight for me.  More significant though was that I had set up a jake decoy about 20 yds away and that tom saw it and made a beeline for it.  As he made his charge, I made a beautiful shot at 20 yds with my Hoyt Aspen bow, and dropped him where he stood!!

Jakes beating up my bird

But wait, the story's not over!  Amazingly, after the shot, none of the other birds ran off.  In fact, three jakes that were in the entourage came running up and began beating the $*&# out of the downed tom.  At first I thought this was pretty cool and took some pictures, but quickly realized that those birds could seriously damage my trophy.  Astonishingly, the only way that I could scare those birds off was to tip over the blind and run at them.  Finally, though, I had my bird!  My feeling of elation was indescribable.  Additionally, it was amplified by my weariness from waking up so early so many days in a row.

Still stomping him when he's down

Finally running off!

Well, that hunt turned out pretty darn good and is still one of my favorites.  That bird ended up weighing 24 lbs with 1 1/8 in. spurs and a 10 1/2 in. beard.  Because this is a pretty decent size bird that I had shot with my bow, I ended up winning the Big Turkey Contest at my local archery club.  Overall, this hunt was great even before Sunday morning, but taking a great shot and succeeding in taking a nice mature gobbler was just icing on the cake.  I can only hope I have more great hunts like this in the future.

Till next time...

TLaSS,
Joshua

Me showing off my bird with the landowners dog in the background

My mounted turkey